Profiling gene expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) reflects the changes related to androgen and insulin metabolism pathway in recreational and competitive athletes

Background. Most of the actual study to identify the muscle transcriptome adaptation to physical exercise, were made on muscle biopsies. Few investigators have examined the effect of exercise on specific PBMC and so whether exercise changes gene expression in blood cells is not fully understood. The aim of this study was to characterize the genomic response of PBMC with the microarray technology according a different sport activity degree. Methods. We recruited 54 subjects (20 agonists, 19 recreationals and 15 controls). To identify changes in gene expression in PBMC as a conseguence of physical exercise, we developed a low-density home made oligoarray composed of 190 genes selected on the basis of their role in androgen and insulin metabolism pathway (AndroChip-2 www.geneticaumana.net/ricerca_news_scheda.php?id=53). Results. All interrogated “AndroChip-2” genes showed a detectable expression levels in PBMC. AndroChip-2 gene signature identified in the athletes a total of 77 genes differentially expressed (FC1,5). In particular 9 of these genes were overexpressed and 68 are underexpressed. Microarray data were confirmed by QRT-PCR. Conclusion. Our results show how the expression profiles of androgen and insulin metabolism genes changes according the sports activity degree in a readily obtainable tissue like blood. Therefore PBMC represents an attractive, clinically accessible tissue for the identification of novel biomarkers. Our work suggests that the study of transcriptional PBMC response to exercise may be a useful area of molecular signature investigation to develop a new strategies to identify gene doping and the use of anabolic steroids.